Two free 90-minute AI classes for your patrons — no presenter fee for the library.
The question deserves a straight answer, because the fear of it stops people from using anything, and the truth is more boring and more useful than the fear. Your phone is not recording your kitchen conversations and shipping them to strangers. The batteries and the data plans of the world could not sustain it, and investigators have tested the theory repeatedly. What actually happens is subtler and worth knowing. The apps on your phone know your location, your searches, and what you click, and from those, advertising systems infer the rest with unsettling accuracy. You mentioned Florida to your sister, by text or in person, and then saw Florida ads, and the text is the likelier source, or the fact that you searched Florida in January and forgot. The defenses that actually work, and they take one afternoon. Go into the phone's settings, search the word permissions, and turn off the microphone for every app that has no business with it, which is almost all of them except the phone itself and any recorder you actually use. Same for location, set it to while using for the maps and the weather, never for the games and the flashlight app, which should never have asked. As for the chat programs, the rule I keep is the rule for postcards. Anything typed or spoken to them can be stored and reviewed somewhere, so the medical specifics, the account numbers, the family arguments stay out, and go to the humans who handle those things anyway. One afternoon of settings, one standing habit about what goes into the postcard, and the fear drops to the level of the actual risk, which is manageable, and was never the reason to stay away.
Want the hands-on version? Come try it at a free class →
Some AI is built by companies and locked behind their apps; some is open for anyone to run and inspect. Each side trades something: polish and safety versus freedom and transparency.
Governments are writing AI law now, with Europe's AI Act furthest along. Expect nutrition-label-style disclosure: what is AI, what data it touched, and what it may not do.
A whole research field works on keeping AI accurate, fair, and controllable. It moves slower than the hype and matters more than skeptics admit.
Hart library card gives you access to almost any book in the entire system! LIBRARY CATALOG About Us Yorktown's community library since 1920. Hart Memorial Library received its charter from New York State on September 3rd, 1920.
From the library's own site, source.
Hours change with the season, so we link the library's own site instead of copying a schedule that could go stale.
Path one: ask the library directly. Patron requests carry real weight with program coordinators, and their website and phone number are linked above.
Path two: tell us you want a class at John C. Hart Memorial Library (Yorktown) and we will count you in when we schedule one there.
Collected from the library’s own website. Availability changes — confirm details on their site.
Live, beginner-friendly, 90 minutes each. Your first two classes cost $0, including the presenter fee — bring us in, see how your community responds, then decide.
Reply “send dates” to our email and we’ll send available times within a day. Or start here:
Email us for available dates →
No presenter fee. No contract. You provide the room, chairs and wifi — we bring everything else.
How booking works · browse all six class topics (no email needed)
Want a class here? Leave your email and we’ll tell you if one gets scheduled at John C. Hart Memorial Library (Yorktown) — and pass the count to their program coordinator.
One email only when scheduling news exists. Or call the library and say you’d attend — patron requests carry real weight.
Heard about us from a neighbor? Forward this page to whoever books programs at your library.
No. Nothing is sold or pitched in the room, and patrons never pay to attend. Take-home materials are free.
None, and here is the model: your first two classes cost you nothing, we collect attendance and feedback, and the next library books us because yours proved it works. Repeat classes after that are a modest honorarium sized to your budget.
A room, chairs, and wifi. We bring the projector, adapters, a backup hotspot, printed handouts — every attendee leaves with a printed AI cheat sheet.
Library AI Courses teaches free, live, 90 minute AI classes at public libraries across the region. A listing here is a directory entry, not an endorsement by the library. Classes get scheduled when a library books one or enough patrons ask. Library staff: how booking works →